US army OKs Manning gender treatment

IN an unprecedented move, the Pentagon is trying to transfer convicted national security leaker Pvt Chelsea Manning to a civilian prison so she can get treatment for her gender disorder, defence officials say.

The soldier has asked for hormone therapy and to be able to live as a woman.

The request was the first ever made by a transgender military inmate and set up a dilemma for the country's defence department: how to treat a soldier for a diagnosed disorder without violating long-standing military policy.

Transgenders are not allowed to serve in the US military and the department does not provide such treatment, but Manning can't be discharged from the service while serving his 35-year prison sentence.

Some officials have said privately that keeping the soldier in a military prison and unable to have treatment could amount to cruel and unusual punishment.

Department Secretary Chuck Hagel last month gave the army approval to try to work out a transfer plan with the Federal Bureau of Prisons, which does provide such treatment, two Pentagon officials said on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to speak on the record.

"No decision to transfer Pte Manning to a civilian detention facility has been made, and any such decision will, of course, properly balance the soldier's medical needs with our obligation to ensure she remains behind bars," Pentagon press secretary Rear Admiral John Kirby said.

The two agencies are just starting discussions about prospects for a transfer, the two officials said.

Cases of national security interest are not normally approved for transfer from military custody to the federal prison system.

The former intelligence analyst was sentenced in August for six Espionage Act violations and 14 other offences for giving WikiLeaks more than 700,000 secret military and US State Department documents, along with battlefield video, while working in Iraq in 2009 and 2010.

After the conviction, Manning announced the desire to live as a woman and to be called Chelsea, a name change that was approved last month by a Leavenworth County District Judge and that the military did not oppose.

The soldier has been diagnosed by military doctors multiple times - including after arriving at the Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, prison - with gender dysphoria, the sense of being a woman in a man's body.

By November, a military doctor there had approved a treatment plan, including hormone therapy, but it was sent higher up the chain of command for consideration, according to a complaint filed by Manning in March over the delay in getting treatment.